[pmwiki-users] Re: preformatted text

[chr at home.se]

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005, Patrick R. Michaud wrote:

> current markup for this is space+[=...=], as in
> 
>      [=
>     Here is some monospace text.  Note
>     the space before the initial bracket+equals.
>     =]
..
> However, new authors are often surprised by [@...@] when it contains
> multiple lines -- the newlines are folded into a single output line
> (as @@[=...=]@@ would do), whereas many authors expect the result 
> to have the newlines preserved in preformatted text.

I'd just assumed that [@...@] only works when placed on a single line.

> So, perhaps we can reduce author surprise and add our needed markup
> by saying that [@...@] around text with newlines results in a
> <pre>...</pre> block instead of <code>...</code>.

Sounds potentially brilliant! 

The result of the following:
	[@
	A preformatted line
	@]
seems obvious to me, but what would the result be of this markup:
	A normal line [@What is
	this text???@]

Will you ghet "What is" on the same line as "A normal line", or will it 
start on a line of its own? (I have a vague memory that <pre>..</pre> 
introduces a new line by itself)

> 2.  Introduce explicit (:pre:) ... (:preend:) directives.  Another 
> possibility is to just introduce explicit directives for
> preformatted text.  The only qualm I have with this is that it
> can look a little more verbose than I'd like -- especially the
> "(:preend:)" part.
> 
>     (:pre:)
>     Here is some 
>     monospaced text
>     spread across multiple lines.
>     (:preend:)

This looks perfectly fine to me. It might also be slightly more intuitive 
for new authors, especially as the structure (:XXX:)..(:XXXend:) is 
getting more common in the markup. I might even prefer (:pre:) over [@ for 
consistency... it's a difficult choice.

> 3.  Try to create preformatted div wikistyles.  I've played with this
> a bit, but it again becomes an issue of dealing with initial and
> trailing newlines.  The best I can come up with so far is
> 
>     >>pre<< Here is some
>     monospaced text
>     spread across multiple lines
>     >><<

I can't quite see the advantage of this over (:pre:)...(:preend:). In 
addition, how would I write the following using div wikistyles:

	(:pre:)
	We will now illustrate a so called div wikistyle:
	>>wikistyle<<
	This would be within a wikistyle.
	>><<
	(:preend:)

In conclusion, my vote is on 1 and/or 2, but not 3.

/Christian

-- 
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44               http://www.md.kth.se/~chr